The scholars whispered among themselves, their eyes flickering between Elara and me.
"A spell without an incantation? Without a medium?" one of them muttered.
"Preposterous," another scoffed.
But I had already expected this reaction.
After all, in this world, magic was thought to be inseparable from ritual.
A mage needed incantations, gestures, runes, or artifacts to channel their will into reality. That was the absolute law of magic here.
But I knew better.
Because I had created this world.
And I knew the one thing no one else didâmagic wasnât bound by tradition.
It was bound by logic.
Elara and I stepped onto the spell-testing platform. The stone beneath our feet pulsed with faint blue light, activating the mana-detection runes.
"This platform will measure all magical output," one of the scholars explained. "If you attempt deception, we will know."
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
I smirked.
"We wouldnât dream of it."
A different scholar adjusted his spectacles. "You claim to be able to cast a spell without a medium. Very wellâshow us a practical application."
I turned to Elara. "Ready?"
She nodded.
We had already planned this out.
Our goal wasnât just to prove that magic could be cast without traditional methodsâwe had to demonstrate complete control.
That meant not just summoning energy, but shaping it freely.
The Spell Begins
I closed my eyes.
I wasnât just trying to cast a spellâI was solving an equation.
Mana wasnât some mystical force. It followed lawsâjust unknown ones.
And right now, I was about to prove those laws existed.
I took a deep breath, mentally visualizing the spell not as words or gesturesâbut as a function.
M(x) = â« f(x) dx
Where:
M(x) represented mana flow over time.
f(x) represented spell intensity as a variable function.
a to b defined the controlled boundaries of the energy.
The problem with magic in this world was that mages couldnât predict energy fluctuations. They relied on instinct, leading to unstable casting.
But I had a formula.
And formulas always worked.
I opened my eyes.
Mana gathered around meânot wild and chaotic like a normal spell, but precise, flowing in a controlled pattern.
A soft golden light shimmered at my fingertips.
Gasps erupted from the scholars.
"Impossible," one of them whispered.
I kept going.
By tweaking the integral functionâs upper and lower bounds, I adjusted the manaâs outputâcompressing it into a single, stable shape.
A perfectly formed sphere of light.
No words. No gestures. No catalysts.
Just pure mathematical control.
Elara stepped forward. She had spent the last few days studying my equations, and now she followed the same principles.
She raised her hand, shaping a thin blade of windânot with an incantation, but by altering the mana flow density using derived formulas.
A scholar stood up.
"This⦠this breaks every known magical law!"
I turned to him, still holding my controlled sphere of mana.
"No," I corrected. "It proves magic always had lawsâyou just never discovered them."
Silence.
Then, a slow clap echoed through the chamber.
The lead scholar, the one who had been the most skeptical, now wore a stunned expression.
"You two⦠have just rewritten history."
We passed the test.
Not because of talent.
But because we had the knowledge that no one else did.
And with that knowledge, we now had access to the Royal Archives.
Where the Forbidden Grimoire awaited.